


where the heart is

by extasiswings



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Feelings, Introspection, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 15:02:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13250706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extasiswings/pseuds/extasiswings
Summary: New Year’s Eve. She could have spent it anywhere she wanted. Could have spent it with anyoneshe wanted. And instead, she’s alone on a rooftop in Hell’s Kitchen for reasons she can’t even fully understand.Jesus Christ, Ellie. Get your fucking shit together.





	where the heart is

**Author's Note:**

> For fadedtoblue because I mentioned my headcanon that Elektra comes back every once in awhile to check on Matt and then promised I would write it. Pretty sure my girl E here would bite my head off for saying it, but dang can she pine like a champ.

_You should know better_ , Elektra thinks as the rusted fire escape creaks beneath her boots.

_You’re better than this_ —and that one is in Stick’s voice, thick with disappointment. She tries and fails to not picture the face that would match it—mouth twisted in scorn, unseeing eyes somehow still managing enough judgment to make her feel like a child.

_Shut up_ , she tells him, clenching her hands tighter around the rail when mocking laughter echoes in her mind.

There’s snow on the roof, but Elektra doesn’t mind when the chill seeps through her coat as she takes a seat at the edge. One floor below, a window opens, loud peals of giggles filtering out.

“Christ, Foggy—” And, oh. _Oh_. Elektra stops breathing, closing her eyes and letting it wash over her. “—it’s fucking freezing. Close it.”

Matt’s voice is warm and cut through with amusement—he’s drunk, she thinks, off of cheap champagne that was probably hell on his tastebuds—and hearing him sound happy shouldn’t make her feel like she’s bleeding out, but it does.

(Or maybe it’s the girl who had been draped over him earlier that’s making her feel that way, the one who had clung to him as their group stumbled down the street, who’s probably still sitting with him now as her blonde friend joins Franklin Nelson at the window. Either way, Elektra wants to claw something. It’s pathetic. She hates it)

It’s good that he’s drunk though. He’s less likely to notice her that way. Less likely to pick up a familiar—(would it still count as familiar after two years?)—heartbeat on the roof of the apartment he’d found because of her, he’d been able to _afford_ because of her, not that she ever told him about her role in his apartment search. 

If he were to notice, if he were to confront her...Elektra wouldn’t know what to say. She doesn’t have an explanation for being back in New York. Not this time. Hell, she hasn’t had one any of the other times she’s come back either. She just...needed to. Needs to. Like there’s an itch between her shoulder blades that makes her go because otherwise it’ll drive her mad. 

She never says anything. She stays out of his way, watching from the shadows, far enough that if he managed to catch her scent he wouldn’t be able to prove it. She comes back, she sees him, sees that he’s fine, and then she leaves again, itch scratched. 

_You’ve gotta stop this, Ellie_ , Stick had said after the last time, and Elektra had wrenched her arm from his grasp and hissed _You’re not my father_ with as much venom as she could muster and they hadn’t spoken for three months.

“The nuns know you know that word, Murdock?” One of the girls—the blonde one—teases. “Or do you have to go to confession now?”

“I’m an adult, Marci,” Matt replies, and Elektra knows exactly what he looks like when his voice turns wicked—a flash of teeth and a smirk that begs to be kissed off— “I can say fuck.”

Her stomach clenches when he hits the final consonants with deliberate force. Because he may be joking, but it’s almost the same sound as when he’s not, the same as the last time she’d worked him to a desperate enough state that his tongue had caught and twisted around the “L” in her name, that the “K” had been a hard click as he arched into her hands—

Elektra _yanks_ herself out of the memory, moving beyond not minding into being actively grateful for the cold air that cuts through the heat bursting in her blood. 

“I’ll close it after the ball drops. Should be any minute now.”

“It’s _cold_ —” Matt starts again, only to cut off with a splutter at a soft _thwack_ of fabric hitting something solid. “That was rude.”

“Now you have a blanket,” Foggy points out. “You’re _welcome._ Come on, ninety seconds.”

New Year’s Eve. She could have spent it anywhere she wanted. Could have spent it with any _one_ she wanted. And instead, she’s alone on a rooftop in Hell’s Kitchen for reasons she can’t even fully understand. 

_Jesus Christ, Ellie. Get your fucking shit together._

Below, someone starts chanting a countdown, and Elektra leans back on her elbows in the snow and looks up at the sky. 

She misses him. She’s not supposed to miss him. 

Of course, she wasn’t supposed to love him either. That was never the plan. And yet, somewhere between fucking in a ring at Fogwell’s gym and a knife clattering to the floor of a too-expensive house, she fell. 

_Soft._ It’s not a word she was ever meant to like. She was trained to be hard—sharp edges and blood in the dark. She thought she could get Matt to join her there. Instead she let him pull her the other way, into the light, into love.

He ruined her. It would be so much easier if she could hate him for that. 

Cheers erupt from below and the sky lights up above, the whole city celebrating as the clock turns over. And through it all, Elektra _breathes_. 

(He didn’t ruin her. He made her better. The problem is she doesn’t know how to do that without him)

“Hey, guess what?”

The window is still open. 

“What?” Matt asks. 

“This time next year, we’re gonna be fucking lawyers. How great is that?”

Matt laughs again, but it’s quieter, more subdued. “Pretty damn great.”

Which, damn it all, she’s actually _proud_ of him. 

The window finally closes and conversation cuts off since Elektra’s ears aren’t nearly as sharp as Matthew’s. It’s for the best. She shouldn’t be here.

When she was a child, there was a little antique shop at the end of the road where she lived. She used to stop and stare at the display in the front window—an elaborate needlepoint creation reading _Home is where the heart is_. She’d never understood it. How could your heart be anywhere but with you? 

She understands now. 

Elektra stands up slowly, being careful not to slip—it wouldn’t do to fall off Matthew’s roof. Another burst of laughter reaches her ears as she turns back towards the fire escape and she pauses for the briefest of moments before shaking herself. 

“Enough,” she says quietly. “Enough now.”

She’ll stay away this time. She’ll move on. That’s what she swears as she walks away. 

If she’s never been one for sticking with New Year’s resolutions, well. It’s not as though she’s the only one.


End file.
